


Clothes Maketh the Man

by Zeke Black (istia)



Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: First Time, M/M, Old West, POV Ezra Standish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:28:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27685592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/istia/pseuds/Zeke%20Black
Summary: Chris joins Ezra in his room above the saloon for the first time.
Relationships: Chris Larabee/Ezra Standish
Comments: 4
Kudos: 35





	Clothes Maketh the Man

He leaned against the door of his room to press it closed, the quiet snick of the latch shivering along his nerves as the din of the saloon in mid-evening faded. With deliberation, he pushed himself upright and turned the key in the lock, reveling in that quiet clunk, too, as a further layer of protection. The room was mostly dark. Only the flicker of the street fires outside provided enough light to guide his steps to the window to pull the shade: the third protection. As he turned around, soft light was already bathing his refuge in warmth and welcome.

He watched as Chris straightened from lighting the lamp and looked up at Ezra, head atilt. Chris's eyes were amused--in a distinctly predatory way. Ezra's nerves tingled again, all along his arms and back right down to his hardening cock. He shifted his feet apart to ease the tightness. Chris's eyes roved down to Ezra's groin, then back up, gleaming like a cocked colt in moonlight. Chris was silent, as Chris was habitually sparing of his words.

Ezra swallowed away the dryness in his throat. "So--"

"We here to talk and drink like you said, or something else you couldn't bring up in polite company?"

Without waiting for an answer, Chris helped himself to a swallow from the bottle of Highland Pure Rye on the night table. Ezra seized the chance to take a long pull from his own flask before slipping it back into his pocket.

He cleared his throat. "Right, well. So--"

"So now we done the whiskey and we done the conversation you offered to get me up here. Are we all done?" Chris smiled like a cougar might, if a cougar stalking its prey could smile. His voice dropped to a murmur: "Or are we just getting started?"

Ezra laughed, nerves suddenly entirely settled. Chris fucking Larabee actually _wanted_ to be here alone in Ezra's room with him, had accepted his carefully casual invitation with as much investment in pursuing this...private liaison as Ezra did. He cocked his own head, looking across the room at Chris standing like a study in contrasts: his black clothes like invulnerable armor absorbing the light while his fair hair, bared as his hat hung down his back, shone like a beacon.

"We're overdressed."

He smiled his own most predatory smile, the wide one that displayed his shiny gold tooth: more a small, deadly, colorful coral snake than a cougar, though it was a toss-up which of those creatures would win in an outright battle.

If this were a battle about to get underway rather than a quest for a shared prize.

Chris took two steps across the small room, which brought him close enough to flick the velvet collar of Ezra's jacket. "Green suits you." He glanced between the coat and Ezra's eyes. "Brings out the color in 'em."

After a beat, he dropped his hand. "But I reckon the red one suits you best. Less subtle. Fitting for a man bold enough to risk hanging--or at least a bitching bad beating and being run outta town on a rail--to reach for what he wants. I used to think you were just all flash and talk."

"You appear to be the garrulous one, all of a sudden." Ezra studied the familiar face set in abruptly unfamiliar lines, and recognized he'd only ever known Chris's public persona before. Who'd've guessed the private Chris Larabee was as different as night and day from the public face he showed the world? Ezra shivered as a thrill went up his spine.

"Anything else you'd like to say before we, uh, move on?"

Chris's smile sharpened. "I'd like to see you lying spread out on that bed on top of that fancy red coat of yours."

Ezra's cheeks heated and his cock jerked in his far too tight pants. He dropped his hands to the buttons at his crotch and eased them open with a sigh.

"Turn down the bed and I'll fetch the coat."

He turned away on Chris's grin, fingers busy on the buttons of his vest. He took little time in hanging the green coat in the closet, foregoing his usual wielding of the clothes brush. Then, in double-quick (for him) time, he divested himself of necktie, vest, gunbelt, shoulder harness, derringer rig strapped to his right arm, ruffled shirt, boots, socks, and pants. Still in his undergarments, he turned around, holding the bright red jacket. Chris, stark naked, was standing next to the bed, the covers neatly folded at its foot. He looked bemused.

"You really do drape yourself in a load of crap."

"Can't have enough protection in my line of business." He'd put his gunbelt on top of the dresser with his second gun and the derringer, but frowned as he noticed Chris's gunbelt hanging on the bedpost nearest the door. "That's my side of the bed."

"Not tonight it ain't." Chris's voice brooked no compromise, but it softened as he added, "Tonight you're in the middle. And so am I."

Ezra finally let his eyes unglue from Chris's face and wander down his naked body: slowly, taking all the time he wanted. He'd seen Chris naked before--in the bath house, or washing in rivers on the trail--but he'd never been allowed to _look_ , to study, to appreciate. He took his time now following the long, clean lines of Chris's lean body, learning the way the light caught on the fair hair on his chest; how that sparse hair angled down to thicker, darker hair at his groin; at the sinewy muscles in his thighs; at the fattening heft of his extremely appealing cock.

Ezra licked his lips, so close to finally being able to taste the forbidden fruit that tension was rising again, but the good kind of tension this time: anticipation gaining urgency, mirrored in his own cock. Which Chris in turn was openly appreciating just as much as Ezra was appreciating his, Chris's light eyes darkening with raw desire.

Their eyes snapped up simultaneously and their gazes meshed for a heartbeat, before Chris broke the silence with a crooked smile. "You're still overdressed."

Ezra laughed and tossed the coat onto the bed. As he peeled off his undergarments, he watched Chris arrange the coat in the middle of the bed to his liking, stretching it lengthwise on the mattress. When Ezra lay down, arranging himself along its length, the red fanned out on either side of him like gaudy, albeit rough, plumage. He liked the feel of the wool against his back and his ass, not silken or soft like the cotton sheets, but with a tinge of roughness like the promise in Chris's eyes.

"Speaking of clothes--"

"Which we ain't."

"--as we were, how about you indulge my desire in return?" Ezra looked up at Chris poised at the side of the bed, and smiled to flash his gold tooth. "Wear your duster."

Chris stared at him a moment, then smirked and donned his black duster. He blew out the lamp and settled himself carefully over Ezra in the center of the bed.

Their kisses and exploring hands were silent, though the iron bed squeaked softly, as beds are wont to do. Quiet grunts and moans accompanied their joinings as moonlight, seeping around the edges of the shade, slowly traversed the ceiling. The noise from the saloon was a distant but reassuring backdrop, a cover; it would take acute hearing and a suspicious mind for anybody outside the room to discern that the small sounds were all pitched equally low, rather than a melding of higher and lower tones.

As they probed each other's bodies, learning their contours and how they best fit together, building passion in vigorous couplings between resting quietly entwined, Chris's duster embraced them like the wings of a crow while Ezra's coat, the color of blood and life, anchored them.


End file.
